A/HRC/55/51/Add.1 Annex Report of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Fernand de Varennes, on his visit to Paraguay I. Introduction 1. From 14 to 25 November 2022, at the invitation of the Government of Paraguay, the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Fernand de Varennes, conducted a country visit to evaluate the overall situation of minorities in the country by considering the legislation, policies and practices for the implementation of the country’s international human rights obligations affecting minorities. 2. The Special Rapporteur met with almost 200 individuals at the national, regional and municipal levels, including representatives of civil society organizations, minority representatives from communities of Indigenous, Mennonite, Afrodescendent, sign language-using, Ukrainian, Polish, German, Brazilian, Bolivian, Venezuelan, Jewish, Evangelical and Muslim persons, as well as experts from various parts of the country, both virtually and in person. 3. The mission also included on-site visits to the Chaco Region and Emboscada city. The Special Rapporteur met with high-level representatives of a number of departments and other governmental entities, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Paraguayan Institute for Indigenous Peoples, the Supreme Court of Justice, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, the National Institute of Statistics, the Ministry of Education and Sciences, the National Secretariat of Culture, the Secretariat of Language Policies, the Superior Court of Electoral Justice, the Ministry of Urban Planning, Housing and Habitat, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, the National Secretariat for the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Technical Secretariat for Economic and Social Development Planning. Municipal and departmental governments, such as the Office of the Governor of Boquerón, the Municipality of Asunción, the Municipality of Filadelfia and the Municipality of Emboscada, were also visited. 4. The Special Rapporteur also received written submissions, both in advance and during his visit, from civil society organizations, in particular organizations representing Afrodescendent and Indigenous Peoples and users of sign language. He is deeply grateful to all of those who organized community consultations with him. 5. The Special Rapporteur expresses his gratitude to everyone he met with for their readiness to engage in an open dialogue to better understand and assess the human rights situation of minorities in Paraguay. He sincerely thanks the Government of Paraguay for the support and invaluable cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 1 II. Objectives of the visit 6. The objectives of the visit were to identify, in a spirit of cooperation and constructive dialogue, good practices and to address existing gaps and deficiencies in the promotion and protection of the human rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minority groups in Paraguay, in conformity with the mandate of Special Rapporteur on minority issues. 1 2 The Special Rapporteur is grateful for the support of and the work undertaken by the staff at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva for the coordination, preparation and finalization of the mission to Paraguay, as well as the staff of the OHCHR office in Paraguay and the office of the United Nations Development Programme in Paraguay, and the many civil society groups that provided much appreciated assistance, in particular during on-site visits. GE.23-23380